Public and private infrastructure must be revitalized. This revitalization requires engineers, owners, and stakeholders to adopt a new mindset of developing structures with longer service lives through the use of innovative materials and designs. Forward-thinking practices will address challenges associated with increased urbanization, sustainability, and climate change that will impact future generations.
Our research aims to advance novel materials and structural systems to revive the built environment through three main areas:
Experimental Investigations. As engineers and researchers develop new and re-engineered materials to improve the built environment, experimental studies must be carried out to understand the behavior of components and structures utilizing these novel materials. In our research, we conduct experiments, from small- to large-scale, to understand how novel materials behave in structures. Our research helps identify the advantages, and limitations, when using advanced materials and systems.
Numerical Simulations. Experimental research on structural systems and materials is often constrained by limitations in the number, size, and/or scope of experiments. In our research, we use and develop advanced computational modeling tools to (1) validate experimental results, and (2) explore research questions when limited experiments can be conducted.
Development of Design Guidelines. New materials and building systems go hand-in-hand with new approaches to design. We use our knowledge from experimental observations and computational simulations to develop design approaches that can help bring emerging materials and systems from research to practice.